Discuss the latest comic book news and front page articles, read or post your own reviews of comics, and talk about anything comic book related. Threads from the two subforums below will also show up here. News Stand topics can also be read and posted in from The Asylum.

BlueStreak wrote:You can always borrow my hardcovers and see if that appeals to your tastes.

When I have less stuff in a pile to read I might take you up on that if the offer's still open. Just got 2 feet of tpbs and gns this week. I wish I could take a lot of time to read it all, but I have to stay highly motivated to sell things both in the shop and online through the new year and also have a few in town and out of town things to buy or sell at. Can't believe it's that time of year again already.

Punchy wrote:That's already out, I saw it in my shop today, and King Impulse has a copy.

Yeah, it looked so good. I had to leave really quickly though because Doctor Who cosplay guy was in there and it was like having knives shoved into my teeth.

Dunno how approachable Scarlet #3 will be, but Invincible #75 should be a huge blowout issue and I have a big soft spot for Connor Kent, especially in his lil' Trinity with Bart and Tim. I wish those guys had their own road trip book\sitcom.

Also I read Incognito today and will review tomorrow. I have a sneaking suspicion that I'll be using the word 'Sleeper' a hell of a lot in this week's review.

I don't see the comparsions to be honest. Sure, face value, they're there but, overall, Sleeper is about a guy trying to figure out who he is while Incognito is about a guy trying to see where he fits.

Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips together gives me the same feeling I've only felt a few times before: Chris Claremont and John Byrne, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, George Perez and Marv Wolfman, George Perez and Steve Englehart, George Perez and just about anybody but I digress.

Acutually I haven't read volume 1 yet but it's in my personal list of must reads. After reading this I moved it up to the top of that list. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a comic as much as this. Both art and dialogue come together here in such a perfectly symbiotic way that it transcends the average comic book. I can't imagine if you enjoyed the first volume you could not like the beginning of this one. I hate having to choose after a near perfect pick like this.

Story: 9.5Art: 9.5My Score: 9.5

Max Blyss wrote:Months and months and months and the whole thing is still just an intersection at Dipshit Lane & Chip on my Shoulder Ave.

So this is crime noir with superpowers, eh? This is my first read of Incognito, so I'm not familiar with the characters. Therefore, I was disappointed to find that there was no recap page - just a note telling readers to pick up the first trade. This annoyed me a little bit, because this is a small indy book, and I think the creators should be happy new readers are picking it up and show a little courtesy.

That being said, I did enjoy the issue for the most part. The characters were laid out and the story set up in a way I could follow. This book is a sharp contrast from another Icon book we recently reviewed, Millar's Nemesis. Where Nemesis was all concept, no real substance, this book had substance but kind of a generic concept. The concept, "crime book with superpowers and an unlikeable, villainish protaganist," sounds good on paper to hipsters, but in reality is kind of a mishmash of a bunch of other concepts that hipsters are into, like a hipster comic long island iced tea. But despite that, it's well written and looks nice, and I'll probably stick with it for a few issues to see if it picks up.

As far as new, non-superhero books I've been trying lately, Casanova and Morning Glories blow this out of the water, but I really don't mean to come off like I dislike it. It's better than average, but bland at the same time. Maybe I'm missing something.

Jude Terror wrote:So this is crime noir with superpowers, eh? This is my first read of Incognito, so I'm not familiar with the characters. Therefore, I was disappointed to find that there was no recap page - just a note telling readers to pick up the first trade. This annoyed me a little bit, because this is a small indy book, and I think the creators should be happy new readers are picking it up and show a little courtesy.

That being said, I did enjoy the issue for the most part. The characters were laid out and the story set up in a way I could follow. This book is a sharp contrast from another Icon book we recently reviewed, Millar's Nemesis. Where Nemesis was all concept, no real substance, this book had substance but kind of a generic concept. The concept, "crime book with superpowers and an unlikeable, villainish protaganist," sounds good on paper to hipsters, but in reality is kind of a mishmash of a bunch of other concepts that hipsters are into, like a hipster comic long island iced tea. But despite that, it's well written and looks nice, and I'll probably stick with it for a few issues to see if it picks up.

As far as new, non-superhero books I've been trying lately, Casanova and Morning Glories blow this out of the water, but I really don't mean to come off like I dislike it. It's better than average, but bland at the same time. Maybe I'm missing something.

6/10

Looks like you didn't miss much, that pretty much puts a bumper sticker on it,

Victorian Squid wrote:Except the last arc of Criminal has a lot of the same problems in terms of following a course readers of genre fiction are all too familiar with.

The Sinners was genuinely suspenseful, though. Lawless had three sets of people after him: the boy-killers, the army investigator, and his mob boss. So while the book was going over familiar terrain (I won't argue with you that the basic plot was cliche), it had enough twists and bumps to make you want to see what happens next.

Eli Katz wrote:The Sinners was genuinely suspenseful, though. Lawless had three sets of people after him: the boy-killers, the army investigator, and his mob boss. So while the book was going over familiar terrain (I won't argue with you that the basic plot was cliche), it had enough twists and bumps to make you want to see what happens next.

Just about, yeah, but the next volume should really try to open the scope of the book more...I don't feel very articulate at the moment so I can't be much clearer right now.

Writing crime fiction is hard, it's much more difficult than people imagine when readers are even moderately well-versed in the genre, to keep them interested. Sometimes it falls to characters, and in Lawless I felt like I had seen them all many times.